In a steam iron or a steamer, a fluid pump is generally used to deliver water from a water storage chamber to a steam generating chamber. One type of fluid pump used to fulfil this function is a solenoid-based pump. A solenoid-based pump has a solenoid which is operated to cyclically actuate a piston or a diaphragm. However, such a fluid pump is generally heavy, expensive and requires a large volume of space in the housing of the iron or steamer due to the coil windings and plunger mechanism. Alternatively, a cam mechanism may be used to reciprocally operate a piston or diaphragm. A cam mechanism is generally rotatably driven by a drive shaft of an electric motor. Such a cam is fixedly mounted to the drive shaft of a geared DC electric motor, which acts on a piston to drive the piston in a reciprocal motion. However, the cam arrangement and DC motor required to drive the cam mechanism is large and heavy.
In an attempt to provide a compact and lightweight fluid pump a piezo-based actuating means may be used. However, such piezo-based pumps are expensive due to cost of the electronic driving circuits required to drive the ultrasonic vibration of the piezo element, the complex construction needed to remove heat from the piezo element for reliable operation, and the necessary voltage isolation to isolate the piezo element from the water pumped by the fluid pump.